Kieran Brookes Critical justification 1

Critical Justification 1 Kieran Brookes

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Discover 6

Why Tupperware?

Time plan Exploration Why we use it?

History Other than plastic First Tackle Pod Cast MATTER

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Start to finish Who Food Specific Interim

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Defining 34

Hot meals 52

Playing with form 54 Materials 56 Pressure and slow cookers 58

60 Pressure cooking 62 64 66 68 70 72 76 78 80 82 86 88

Inside Market Where am I in the market?

Pressure cooking Cooking at uni User journey based concepts Doing the process The pressure cooker!

What actually is one?

Product architecture Specific product journey Idea generation

92 Specification 94 96 98 102 106 108

Reflection Cut through diagram Cables are a pain Four candles Actions Dual uses

110 What next?

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Discover

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Possible p

rojects a reas

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Which one?

The choosing of my exploration/major project area first of all started during my placement with Matter. They were able to give me professional advice and guidance as to what I should maybe thinking about when coming up with a project.

During my time there I came up with a variety of ideas including; compact living thinking about the co-op space in the household, how energy is ultimately it is a finite resource and how there is maybe a lack of understanding of how much we use in our every day lives as well as an idea of future kitchens and how possibly in 20 years time there might not be a need for a kitchen.

From this I never actually came to a definite conclusion of direction however the future of kitchens was interesting me the most - this might of been the start of my indecisiveness.

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Personal tutorrial with Ian Hewitt about further discussion into the direction I was planning on taking. At this point I had 2 stronger directions office life and future kitchens. Then within them I had defined 3 directions to break the subjects down.

After reviewing I found that the future kitchens area would be best and interesting choice, the categories of the brief were food waste, cleaning, enjoyment and relaxation.

From this I started to investigate the enjoyment and relaxation within the kitchen leading to more in line of what I based my exploration on.

Treating the eating and preparation of food as a social activity and taking it out side of the kitchen.

Questioning why it doesn’t happen as much when we are at our place of education or work.

Explo

ration

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PLANNED ACTUAL

Design it!

PROGRESS

Firm project direction

Reassess my direction Explore and define

Identify area Explore and define

OCTOBER 12

EXPLORATION

Design it!

Reassess my direction

Firm projec direction

Hand in

Start Final model

INTERIM

ct

Communication Validate work Finished Model

The time management I had on this project I feel was poor on my part, feeling unsatisfied with the work produced in the time alloted. I believe this was due to poor decision making and not following process.

MAY 13

Bouroullec brothers - Joyn

Snøhetta

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In exploration my first approach to the project was to look at how designers had previously tackled the area of the work space, social interaction in the work place and the relationship we have with food and socializing. One example is the Bouroullec brothers and their Joyn table, creating a table that enabled the space for many different modes whilst still being in unison, creating a coherent work space.

Snøhetta, the architecture firm, was looking at how architect can be the people to create the co-op workspace for many different people and activities.

Then IKEA investigating our relationship between socializing and food by pop-up restaurants like the dinning club.

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Other things I looked into for exploration included the habits of peoples lunch at work, for instance what they ate, who they ate it with and where.

Giving me a sense how what I was designing around. Through out the exploration I had not arrived or had much of an idea what I was maybe going to carry through into major project if I did have more of an idea then I think that I could of used the exploration time much more effectively as through out the process there was not often a reason why I was doing it, therefore not being 100% beneficial to the development of my area.

Thinking about the key elements that are needed to cook with however has proved very relevant, it is maybe one of the first things in exploration that has clear relevance to my current direction.

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At the end of exploration I had planned to incorporate an element of ownership for office workers in the lunch break, so after this my approach was to think about the products that we all often use during our lunch break, containers for our food.

Major

projec

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Challenging the status quo of material use in lunch time food containers to create a better experience of food.

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Why Tupperware?

The plastic container provides the perfect opportunity for people to differ from the sandwich option at the local supermarket, it allows the user to easily transport pre-cooked meals or leftovers into their work place. Its popularity could be down to its functionality, even though its food experience isn’t the best, people value the ease of being able to contain, throw into a work bag and heat up at work.

Tupperware Functionality Experience

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History

From exploration I talked about how ownership of a product and food can increase the meaning and value to a user tenfold. With this in mind I came up with the idea of using the UK’s rich industrial heritage as a influence on the product, giving a opportunity for users to relate to or buy into as they have historical connections with said industries.

Each industry often had its own tweak on the lunch time making it a good source of influences.

I think using this as the main driver of the project doesn’t make it strong enough. So for this reason making it a 2nd or after thought seemed reasonable.

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ed

Us

Ne w

Other than plastic

Changing the material is the main approach to improving and challenging the norm of plastic containers. Here I made a wooden plate to see how it aged over a period of time.

At this point I was very focused on making a product that was made from different materials other than plastic. Making a wooden alternative seemed an obvious route to try. When using the plate, even though I had made it, I felt more appreciative of the food as I was eating it off of a plate no one else had.

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Calligaris - Skin

Muuto - Grain pendant

Tom Dixon - Eco cup

Philippe Stalk - Jim Nature TV

Industrial Facility - Cutlery

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Other than plastic

Here I looked at the possibility of composite materials, using the best attributes of bother polymers and natural fibers. Giving the better experience I am aiming to give. Bottom there are some examples of how simple disposable products like plastic cutlery can be used but then have a material change, resulting in clean simple shapes, a celebration of their form.

Although I found this section exciting and useful I did not do enough testing or research into using the materials resulting in it not being used as much as I had hoped. It did however allow me to think more about the combination of the form and material.

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First Tackle

Using the knowledge I had from my exploration and work done up to this point I decided to try and get some ideas into the air. Gathering inspiration from material examples, existing interactions and styling to inform my idea generation. Then I organized them into a matrix, splitting up different sections of the Tupperware area.

I perceived with this task for a while, I found it extremely hard and felt like I was not producing ideas that were valid or relevant to my project.

Instead I decided to come up with themes the working lunch could be divided up into. This then helped my come up with stonger ideas.

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Capturing my thoughts, here I took the change to summarize some concepts and ideas I had not yet firmly visualized. Some of these were drawn from the themes on the previous page.

Taking a moment and looking back on what you are coming up with I found was very important in the project, making sure you are keeping on track with what you set out to do. These were slightly useful as they started to make me think of different possibilities, however not necessarily solutions.

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After my exploration Radio 4 did a pod cast about the British office workers and their lunch times. Sheila Dillon talks about how this break at mid day for something to eat has changed dramatically over the decades, with people once making a stand at lunch time and made sure they had a proper sit down meal and now it being reduced a slight inconvenience of the day. A solution to this ‘inconvenience’ is the sandwich, however, Bee Wilson - author of ‘This is not a diet book’ speaks about how yes we have always had sandwich in our history but it was treated as much more of an emergency lunch. If there was no other means of having something to eat.

Listening to this pod cast helped my justify why I was doing this project and that there really is a need to challenge the norm at lunch time, with this in mind I believe the direction of my project slightly changed direction and made me think of challenging what we are eating at lunch time.

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Points of contact Aug 2016 Initial project area search

30th November Exploration feed back and direction/ sense check on what I am doing.

2nd February Call with John and Rich, giving me ideas in how to conduct my project to have structure and reason

Another meeting at some point? maybe a final proposal for major concept

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Defining

g

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See back of book for full image.

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Start to finish

Grouping some of my peers to create a user journey from getting up and coming back from work. Giving reference points to design around.

This turned out to be a useful tool in terms of basing a lot of concept specific user journeys on.

Using it as a vessel to understand what happens where.

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Homely

Real

Pastoral

Local

Who

Creating a who was the next stage in my project that helped me inform my design. This who was not specially meant to be a target user instead it was to give a who to the product. For example what would the product be like it was a pair of shoes - wellies. This way of designing helped me justify why I was making certain decisions, rather than my gut instinct, which in some cases is still very useful.

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Real meals at work

Eating fresh

Leftovers

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Food specific

As before I used tag lines as concept spirits allowing to inform me what the approach should be. Now that I had defined more of a who and what that who could be doing at different touch points I looked at different types of food at lunch.

This was just before interim and admittedly a rush to organize further development. I think this rush was a good thing as up until now I was not making decisions and narrowing down what I wanted to do.

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Prepare

Mix in pot

Take to work

Dock

Eat

Real meals at work

Focusing around the idea of having a warm cooked meal at work. Prepping at home and then taking the device to work. Once at work the user would connect it with the power dock, from then the pot would slowly cook the contents ready for lunch.

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Buy

Prepare

Eat

Eating fresh

Taking inspiration from fresh fruit and veg markets this concept is about mimicking a basket to encourage fresh ingredients and preparation.

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Prepare

Cook and contain

Store

Re-heat

Take to work

Eat

Leftovers

From a similar perspective as real meals at lunch leftovers was more of a direct reincarnation of the Tupperware. With the function of a food flask the aim was to create more of an experience or meal prepping element into the concept.

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These three routes were the start of my really starting to think about the project and how to tackle my objectives. ‘Real meals at work’ and ‘Eat fresh’ were the ones I liked the most as I believed they were the two that were most different and would give me more of a scope should I want to drastically change.

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Interim (the relaxed one) 8th Feb At this point I has started to try and define key elements of concepts to carry forward. Thinking about the most important thing I am trying to achieve in each idea. Thoughts from tutors were that I had kept up with doing activities and lots of ideas in the air however becoming more decisive with direction.

on

Sim

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“Go with your instinct and make a bloody decision” - Anthony Forsyth

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Hot meal

ls

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Playing with form.

Using objects I prototyping. This helped answer a few questions of sizing and general feel of the product.

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Materials

Tempered glass, a material that provides a durable This proved to be a useful find as at the start of the project the aim was to create a better experience of food, and one way of doing with is a change of material.

I experimented with protection to the plates to see the limits, it proved to be very resistant.

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Pressure

Slow

≈ 121°c

77 - 90°c

200 - 1100 watts

130 - 200 watts

10 - 60 mins

4 - 8 hrs

6 - 15 PSI

ferent Loads of dif either recipes for 58

Pressure and slow cookers

Something I came across after deciding to provide ‘real meals at lunch’ was that the use of a slow cooker as good as it sounds has limitations.

The fact its cook time can be from 4 to 8 hours, this pushes it a little as the morning of an office worker is typically 3 - 4 hours. So considering an alternative seemed necessary - a pressure cooker (P.C) . Similar to a slow cooker, only faster.

Where typically cooking you can only ever cook at a maximum of 100°c (boiling point of water) with a P.C. there is steam involved which can reach temperatures of 121°c speeding the process up to a few of 60 minutes.

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Pressure

e cooking 61

Control and indicator

Heating element Cavity

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Inside

When considering a portable cooker the type of heating element comes to mind. A comparable product is the slow cooker not only looking at how it heats up but also its structure. As see bellow there is a lot of space for heat to escape and not be directed towards the food. The heating element in this slow cooker seems to be a fairly crude resistance element, just held on around the inner part of the cooker by a spring.

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Market

As suspected there are a lot of choice for the market concerning electric cookers and pressure cookers. What I found was that a lot of the portable cookers were just glorified rice cooker or a combination of a induction hob and pot. Other products such as the electric multi cookers and pressure cookers seemed much more sophisticated with different settings, modes and automatic sensors to help cook your food. To follow from that there are a range of hob pressure cookers on the market too, with different types of valves changing the interaction of the pan.

Looking at all of these current product helped my choose what I wanted to be in the market and inform me what was maybe possible, or had not been done before.

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Multi-cooker

Me

Rice cooker

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Pressure cooker

Where am I in the market?

Although after looking at different options of cooking at the work place to provide ‘real meals’ I have decided that the pressure cooker with maybe some multi-cooker functions would be best even if there are complications with tight seals and safety values.

What is a Multi-cooker? It is a device that has the ability to have many differentiation functions including; frying, yogurt making, steamer, bread maker and many more as well as a pressure cooker in some. The auto mated functions of the electric multi and pressure cookers is some thing I plan to include enabling me to provide more of a one touch product.

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Beef curry

Prep

St

e

e a m m

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“It still tastes great! just a little to saucy” - Ailsa Inglis

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e a m

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Pressure cooking

Going through what it is actually like to make a meal with a pressure cooker. At first I had to season the pan by boiling lemon water, fairly easy, just wack in some water and squeeze a lemon. So I waited for the pan to heat and gain pressure, Once pressurized I was slightly startled by the amount of steam and noise it was making! - unsure what to expect. After letting it boil for 5 minutes I carried on with making my dinner - Beef curry. Prepping, frying, searing, adding sauce and sealing! it all seamed to simple.

I locked the pan when I had to allowing the pressure to build and cook for about 20 minutes (after the pressure risen). Once time was up I turned the gas off and allowed it to cool down to open up. I opened it and it smelt delicious but was still very watery, I had not quite got the liquid proportions correct.

What I learnt from this was that there is a slight knowledge base to get recipes correct and that for a beginner a pressure cooker is slightly scary, not know what to do when or not sure if you have control over it.

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Over spill

Tailoring it to you 70

Smell

Messy

Satisfaction

Dirty

Washing up

Cooking at uni

Experiencing what it is like to prepare and cook food out side of the kitchen. Using this camping stove I made a simple lunch time meal to get a feel for what other complications there might be. Big things learnt were that I was reluctant to starting making the meal in-case other people came and saw me, I believe some of this was down to it being a gas stove and not a simple on switch of an electric one. Other nuances included the over spill of the past, the only thing relatable to my project from this would be the excess steam. Finally the faff of having a dirty container you can just put into your bag 71

One pot

All done in the same pot.

Cooking pot and dish

Transport pot

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User journey based concepts One pot

This variant is about being able to dump in ingredients, brown off, slam the lid down and take it to work - a one pot wonder.

Cooking pot and dish

Thinking of how the food is eaten and what happens to the food between the period of preparation and starting of cooking as it may need to be kept cool.

Transport pot

Competently separating the electronics of the cooker and the food container. Proposing that you leave the cooking part of the device at work and transport the food container.

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One pot

Cooking pot a dish

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Doing the process

After I had developed a stronger understanding of what my designs might evolve into I used the user journey I had previously made and carried out the process that might happen when using the product. Some things I learnt were just simple things of like how is the whole set assembled to then have access to i.e. how is the dish orientated when on the P.C. or where does the cutlery go on the device. One practicality found was the way that people begin to cook, the moments from just before lunch and during when the devices has to be set off.

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The dictator of my design

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The pressure cooker!

Difficulties I have found with this project is the nature of what a pressure cooker is, the things that are needed to meet the safety requirements along with functionality. A lot of what I was struggling with is how to convince my self that tight seals can be made and valves that would be able to function properly to ensure the device is portable.

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Safe t off v y blow alve indic and ator

Adjustable pressure valve

Silicone seal

Handle with lock

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What is actually in one?

The key features needed for a pressure cooker are an indicator and blow off valve to show when the device is under pressure and then have the ability to let off steam before it reaches dangerous levels. A lockable latch that stops users from opening the cooker when pressurized. A tight seal allowing the pressure to build and an adjustable valve varying as well as regulating pressure.

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LID

POT

BASE

Container

POWER

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Product architecture Deciding on a basic form to give my self perimeters to design within.

y ough m ion r h t g n nni ficat ings ru cious speci h t w e Af ons a subc d a e h 85

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Specific product journey After the essence of what the design had been set it helped me to do some quick sketches to invision how it would be use. This was based on the previous activities I have done and learnt upon.

“Woo decision making�

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Drawn up over leaf

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andle

rig ht p ow e

ooden h Spun w

rp

orts

B

Cable management Cold colour sema

ntics

Separate controller.

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Steam ve

nt

Dish with ridge lid in compartment

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Idea generation

After solidifying the basic form of the pressure cooker I was able to more direct my idea generation to more specific areas of the device.

On the previous pages I divided the product in its constituents and then explored possibilities around each one. The picked out post it notes that I thought made up all of the necessary things for a concept.

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Specifica

Things to design...

Steam vent adjustment Cable management Device control Dish Internal configuration Cutlery Handle Lid configuration CMF

ation

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Reflection

This project has developed in to some thing much more challenging than what I had initially expected. With factors like creating locking mechanisms when the vessel is under pressure or ensuring there will be a tight enough seal to hold a maximum of 15PSI, but as the project has unraveled it is not specifically all about the workings of the pressure cooker its self but actually trying to deliver an alternative to the office work. In a well thought out designed package, that has consideration to the way the device is used the way the people interact with it.

Trying to move fluidly from paper to workshop has helped me over come some of these queries as it helping me understand the forms capabilities and what I can put where.

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Cables are a pain

Through some of the concepts in this project I have toyed with the idea of having wireless power, kettle like docking or even battery powered, all with their pros and cons. One obvious option seemed to be a Power cable, as users will not be in many positions where they are with out a plug at the lunch time so why complicate things? One thing I have discovered is that it is still fairly complicated, trying to hide or disguise it so it doesn’t interrupt the devices form or function.

Two Ideas I do like is wrapping the cord around and having the prongs retractile to then be held in place by magnets.

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Although these are not the ideas that I had selected on the previous pages I was interested to see how they might look and feel to use.

TOP - Plug handle I really liked as it was a way of disguising the plug with the handle, however, it made the device look very bulky!

Bottom - Separated, deconstruction the plug to then pack away. A nice idea but adding further parts to loose or forget.

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Four Candles (I mean handles)

Earlier on I had decided that the handle was going to be an obvious statement of the device, being one of the main interactions. The different profiles illustrate how it can change the feel of the silhouette of the product.

I found this very useful and I felt like one of the first instances of seeing some clear iterations of details.

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oom Finger r t igh a little t

With lid

With out lid

I think I’ve got a handle on this...

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Firm twist

Flip up and twist

Lid twist

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Actions

Changing the form of the handle then changes the way we interact with the device when opening it. Be it a fixed rigid, flip up rigid or loose handle.

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Dual uses

Finding my self adding more and more components to fit user needs I felt like I needed to reconsider what I was using and where. One sucess was using a lid for different occasions.

One occasion is when you are taking the davice to work and you may want to store things ready for lunch time.

The second occasion is when you arrive at work and you need to keep the food you have prepped cool, so you remove the lid and then put it over the internal container to then place into the fridge.

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What Nex 110

xt?

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From now till 12th of may...

Material choices Colours Locking mechnism Lid seal Device interaction Resolve cable management Dish Other accessories Manufacturing method Final Model Communication

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TA! 09.03.17